Ghana’s parliament has voted to outlaw the death penalty for almost all crimes, becoming the latest African country to repeal capital punishment, lawmakers said on Wednesday.
The West African country last carried out an execution in 1993, with death sentences handed out for murder and treason.
Lawmakers voted late Tuesday to remove the death penalty from the country’s statute books.
“The death sentence is too final, and as a country that respects human rights, we can’t continue to have it as part of our laws,” Francis-Xavier Sosu, an opposition MP who proposed the reform, told AFP.
READ ALSO: We Won’t Tolerate Coup – Tinubu Warns Niger Soldiers
“It’s a proud moment and I am looking forward to the presidential assent.”
The prison service said 172 prisoners are currently on death row and will have their terms converted to life imprisonment.
READ ALSO: Memphis Depay, DJ Cuppy link up in Ghana
Rights group Amnesty International called the vote a major step to abolishing the death penalty by taking it out from a 1960 criminal offence act and also from a 1962 armed forces act.
Trending video of the day;
Photo Credit: Getty
